Burn You Out
by AliceUnderSkies13
Summary: Radiation poisoning, starvation, accidental destruction of her cellphone, Gumi has a lot to worry about. But she never anticipated meeting Len. Together, they may be able to traverse the wasteland and fall in love along the way. LenXGumi, RinXDell. Please R&R. *Birthday present for Catatonic Inspiration*.
1. Radioactive Dog

Even though the planes were flying close to the ground, Gumi could hardly hear them. Sitting in the underground bunker, her knees pulled up to her chin, the suffocating darkness seeping into her eyes, she held the flashlight against her chest and stared at the cellphone in her hand. Cracked glass and scraped edges, the phone was threatening to fall apart in her fingers. The pieces would fall, clattering to the ground and throwing their light every which way, like a dozen matches lighting spontaneously. But Gumi was determined to hold it together. Her sweaty palm supported the decaying cellphone, and her quivering thumb left a fingerprint on the dusty surface. Large green eyes, headlights in the thick darkness, moved over the images on the screen. An article, something she had found and saved seconds before the Internet had gone dead. The Wikipedia article on the screen had a heading, "United States Declaration of Independence", and that is where Gumi's green eyes stopped reading.

But to say that she had been reading in the first place would be wrong; she didn't know how to read, she had never learned. In fact, most people didn't know how to read. That treasure trove of knowledge floating around in the air was utterly useless to the people of Gumi's day. Very few were literate, and even fewer had the desire to learn. All of those articles and sites, warnings from those who existed hundreds of years ago, were ignored by the ignorant and stupid alike. Gumi did not want to be a part of the ignorance, she was hoping that she could transcend the apathy of the day, but no matter how long she stared at those letters, she could not figure out what they meant.

"T-h-e," she whispered, her lips forming each letter with arduous effort. "The…" Her eyes grew wider within the brittle confines of her skull, her sharp cheekbones and sallow cheeks almost shattering beneath the weight of those moon-like eyes. Her emaciated face could hardly support the amount of concentration that she was exerting. Sure, she was pretty enough, as pretty as a half-starved human could be, but there was something odd about those eyes, something unsettling. The people in her village said that she was too curious about things that didn't matter. What mattered? Food, water, shelter, not being eaten by the beasts of the wasteland, looking out for planes in the pale blue sky.

"Those things don't matter now," Gumi said to the blackness around her. "Everyone up there is probably dead." She looked back down at her phone, her skin hot and shiny in the square of synthetic light. "The…d-e-c-l…"

The longer she looked at the letters, the more they didn't make sense. Everything ran together, people's faces disappearing in a heavy fog, shapes becoming bleary outlines in the mist. The first line melded together inside Gumi's mind.

"TheDeclarationofIndependence …wasastatementadoptedbytheCon tinentalCongressonJuly4, 1776…andnolongerapartoftheBritish Empire…."

Sweat beaded on her forehead, the phone slipping down her dampened palm. It slid past her wrist and then tumbled through the air. "No, wait!" she cried. The flashlight fell from her hand and struck the floor, her body leaping forward as she reached for the cellphone. Her videos were on there, her notes on where to find non-irradiated water sources, her dreams and goals and wishes, and that article was on there too. She would never be able to find it again; after all, the Internet had gone dead a few hours ago, just as the planes had descended upon the village. See what looking out for those planes all those years did? Nothing, absolutely nothing. Sky watching, considered to be an important job in the community, was proven to be a useless endeavor now. Gumi had always been the skywatcher, sitting on an old, weathered stone in the middle of the desert, looking up at the blindingly blue sky, and feeling the sun's deadly rays against her skin. Cooking and simmering, her pores shriveling like dried up prunes as the sweat soaked her body and the heat-induced tears streamed down her face. She hated that job, having to stare up at an empty sky, knowing the devastation that would befall the village if a plane was seen, but half-hoping that she would actually see one. Well she didn't have to worry about that anymore. The planes were there, hovering over the village, and the bombs were falling. A storm of shells and shrapnel, when all they had wanted was a storm of rain.

In her head, the falling phone was like a falling bomb, once it hit the earth it would explode and end her life. She stumbled forward, catching the phone with slippery fingers, and hitting the opposite wall with such force that she bounced off, her neck cracking. Sore muscles and the trickle of blood just below her mouth meant nothing, though. The phone was safe, all was well. She sank to the floor, clutching the phone against her chest, relief flooding her body, sweat flowing across her skin. It was so hot in the bunker, like lying out in the desert sands with your unshielded eyes looking directly at the afternoon sun. But it was worth it, it was definitely worth it. Better to be slowly baking inside a metal box than to be incinerated by an unavoidable bomb, leaving behind nothing but a pile of ashes and a permanent shadow.

Gumi lay down with her cheek pressed against the metal, hoping that the darkness would cool her boiling blood. Above her, she could finally hear the roar of the plane engines and the screams of the other villagers. The splattering sound of blood reminded her of the children that ran through the dirty mud puddles and shoved their faces into potholes filled with water, lapping up the contaminated filth and then dying a few weeks later from radiation poisoning or some other waterborne disease. Gumi always warned them, wagging her long index finger and standing with a hand on her hip. "That's not safe, stop it! You guys, that water's probably bad!"

But nobody ever listened to her, if anything, it made them drink more. Little squinted eyes full of spite and thirst, their pupils dilated like rabid dogs. "We do what we want!" the children would cry. "You just want the water for yourself!" And then they would drive her away, biting and clawing, chucking stones and shards of splintered glass.

"That's what you get for butting in, you stupid dog," Gumi's adopted mother would say, her gaunt face red with anger and sunburn. Without a word, Gumi would crawl away, her skin ripped and bleeding, her eyes full of tears. And the tears would come again a little while later, as the moans of sick children filled the village. Looking out into the streets, she would see kids stumbling, clutching their stomachs and whimpering as the first signs of cholera or dysentery appeared. The ones who contracted radiation poisoning would be dead much sooner. Despite all of her compassion, deep down, in the darkest corner of her heart, Gumi felt that they had gotten what they deserved. That unfeeling sense of ultimate justice that resided within her couldn't help but think that. She had warned them, and they had harmed her in return.

As she lay there, staring up at the black ceiling, that sense of justice was rising again. It told her that the people up there were stupid. They had never treated her with kindness, so why should she feel bad if they were blown to bits? Her green eyes narrowed in the darkness, her teeth gnawing unconsciously at her bottom lip. Drops of blood slid down her chin and neck, but she didn't notice. Her anger was boiling just like her blood, her limbs shaking and her face growing pale. All of her animalistic emotions were devouring her humanoid ones, her desirable traits slowly disappearing inside that metal box.

Mouths were being ripped wide open by bloodcurdling shrieks, bombs were dropping, children were crying, blood was flowing, planes were flying, and Gumi was lying on her back, her hands folded atop her abdomen, her eyes vibrating within their sockets. The urge to bang her head against the wall was almost intolerable. Her fingers itched to scratch at the metal doors, her teeth longed to bite and gnash at the empty air around her. Madness lurked in the silence of the metal box. It fed on Gumi's fragile mind, taunting her. The impenetrable darkness fell across her like the black jacket of a stranger and she shivered.

Amidst the muted sounds of chaos and destruction, there came a sudden banging noise. Someone was frantically punching the metal box with their fist. "Open the door!" a voice shouted, the words thick with tears and blood. "Gumi, open the door!"

Gumi looked up at the double doors, which were barred shut, and watched as the metal shook. She could tell that the person was pulling on the handles, the hinges were creaking and the voice was crying out in desperation.

"Please, open it! Gumi, open the door! I'm gonna die!"

"Oh well," Gumi said, pulling absentmindedly at her short green hair.

"No!" the voice wailed. "P-please, j-just open it…"

"Sorry, dogs can't open doors. They don't have any thumbs."

Outside the bunker, Gumi's adopted mother collapsed against the metal doors, her body convulsing, the tears streaming silently down her face. Tired eyes rimmed in salt, growing wide as the smoke whirled through the air, clogging the already blackened lungs that resided within her chest. So much dust and ash, flames leaping towards the sky, debris piling up. Claustrophobia exploded out of the bombs, along with hopelessness and radioactivity. Sand coated her throat and tongue, tasting nothing but the dead earth and her own metallic blood. Burns covered her skin, raw and gaping, and she could already feel the radiation sickness settling in her bones. Laying her head against the door, she raked her broken fingers against the metal.

"I'm sorry…really, I am," she whispered, her voice weak. "I never meant to…"

"I'm sorry, too," Gumi replied. She was right on the other side, her forehead pressed against the bar, her breath condensing on the surface. In her mind, she could see right through the foot of metal and into her adopted mother's eyes. In unison, a bead of sweat dripped down her bangs just as a drop of blood fell into those horrified eyes. Justice reared its beaten head, and Gumi saw the true nature of those eyes, cold and malicious as hands beat her into unconsciousness, unfeeling as angry words sent her out into the night, alone and freezing in the dark. She remembered being forced to sleep in the old doghouse, being locked in the lightless closet without any food, nursing her bloody cuts and lacerations in the corner of the shack. Every wrong that woman had ever done to her came to the surface, and she rammed her fist into the door. "I'm sorry, but you will die out there," she said through gritted teeth. "Like you've always told me, 'just suck it up, 'cause that's life'."

"Gumi…" The voice collapsed into nonsensical sputtering. The woman sobbed, her shoulders heaving and her face buried in the cold folds of the metal door. Dirt, blood, sweat and tears stained her pockmarked skin. Her mouth was open in a bloodcurdling scream, her veins and arteries threatening to explode from the sheer pressure. "Gumi, I'm sorry!" she wailed, and then a bomb went off beside her. She became nothing but a gaping mouth, yellow teeth bared, foam spewing from her throat, and then she was gone. Gumi heard the bones snap and the skin pop like a balloon filled with red paint.

"She's dead," she whispered to herself. A devilish grin spread across her face as tears welled in her green eyes. Happiness, guilt, joy, depression, justice, horror, every feeling, juxtaposed against the other, rushed into her body, and she found herself on her stomach, simultaneously laughing and crying into the steel floor. The bombs continued to fall, the people continued to scream, and Gumi was lost in a fit of hysteria. She did what she longed to do, knock her head against the wall and drag her chipped fingernails across the floor. After what seemed like days of endless crying and darkness, she finally slumped against the wall, the bomb explosions echoing in her ears. Up at the surface, the dust settled and the dead grew quiet, the planes vanishing behind the clouds.

* * *

Gumi woke up to ash and dust. Even though the bunker was sealed shut, the smell of rust and decay was everywhere. On all fours, she crawled up the steps and unbarred the door. Like opening a coffin, the sickening smell of rotting flesh affronted her senses. She covered her mouth with the frayed muffler she always kept around her neck, pulled her goggled over her eyes, and walked out into the dusty sunlight. The air was thick with smoke and condensed plumes of chemicals. Chalky debris and pools of blood covered the ground, Gumi's feet slipping in the cold puddles. The fog around her was so dense, that she could not even see her hands in front of her face. She pressed the muffler against her lips, determined not to inhale any of the poisonous air. Standing in the middle of a white-out, the hot, desert wind throwing her hair every which way, Gumi surveyed the damage around her. Shacks reduced to rubble, twisted bicycles lying in the street, dozens of bloody corpses and piles of burning ashes. The only concrete building, the hospital, was completely destroyed, its patients littered across the road. The wind blew harder, tossing the ashes of the dead into the air. Gumi pulled her hood up and crossed her arms, as she suddenly felt very cold. The sun was barely visible, the few dying rays cutting through the haze. All alone, a girl amongst the bodies, the particles of dust and shreds of burned skin tumbling through the air like pieces of paper. Green eyes void of emotion, not a single tear forming in the dry ducts. Strands of hair, dirty and tangled, fell across her face, and those lips, cracked with dehydration, let the air slide soundlessly between her teeth.

Something, a gas tank most likely, suddenly exploded, making Gumi jump. A fire blossomed behind her, the village's pathetic armory going up in smoke. Her eyes widened, her mind racing. "No, I need that!" she screamed. Her long legs propelled her body forward, and she sprinted down the street, almost tripping on the broken asphalt. Piles of rubble flew past her, smoking heaps of dead dogs and burnt corpses blurred into a single image of scarlet flames and drying blood. The muffler sagged down her bony chin as her movements became faster, her scabbed knees pumping up and down. She could see the armory in the distance, the fiery sepulcher of violence. Inside, weapons were melting. Swords, bows, guns, and the precious ammunition that the villagers had made by hand. Without factories to spit out shells and bullets, guns were practically useless. But people made their own, or savaged for ancient paper boxes that contained a few rounds. Gumi did not use guns, she found them too heavy for her thin arms and they were difficult to aim. Blunt objects, baseball bats or crowbars, were the weapons she felt comfortable wielding. Spinning a wooden bat in her hands was a comforting motion. The polished grain beneath her calloused fingers, the way the blood stained the surface, every aspect of using a baseball bat was nostalgic to her. Her adopted mother hadn't let her bring one into the house, probably out of fear for her own life, so Gumi had hidden her favorite Louisville Slugger in the armory. And now it was on fire, splintering under the immense pressure and melting in the heat.

A few feet away from the collapsing building, Gumi had to shield her eyes. The heat attacked her from every side, every angle, like a wolf pack lunging at its prey. Smoldering embers leapt off the burning roof, landing at her feet. It was a wall of fire, a ravenous beast slowly consuming the raw wood and itself. Gumi inched closer to it, her skin screaming, and looked for a way through. No openings, just doors of red and orange, doors to nowhere. Her pupils shrank in the blinding light, her corneas sizzling as she stared into the heart of the fire. Death was the obvious outcome for anyone who entered, but Gumi could not stop her advance. She was being pulled in by some unseen force. The desire for the baseball bat was too much, her common sense was abandoned and thrown into the inferno. Inch closer and closer, walking towards the doubling flames that devoured the sand and turned it to ash. All hopes and desires were wrapped up inside that piece of wood, a simple weapon, the key to her existence. Without it, she would die; she knew it, so how could she abandon it? Her hands reached forward, her fingers twitching. The sweat seemed to evaporate off her skin, the fire was that hot. But it was all worth it; watching as a stray ember singed her hair. Then her nerves went numb, her vision growing blurry as she crossed the threshold of the hellish door. There was nothing inside, just piles of black ash and dripping streams of metal and liquefied steel. No baseball bat, her one beloved possession had been destroyed.

But then she felt her phone in her front pocket, pressing affectionately against her thigh. It was still alive, and she guessed that it loved her too. _We have to leave, Gumi, _it seemed to say. _I'll burn up in here, and so will you. Please, leave._

And then a real voice cut through the insanity. "Hey! Hey, come here! I'm trapped!"

The fiery delusion that had been sucking Gumi in was broken, her clouded eyes becoming clear again. "Huh?" She jumped back, suddenly aware of the pain that was engulfing her skin and burning her eyes. Bracing herself against her knees, she took a few deep breaths, trying to clear the smoke from her lungs. "How could I be such an idiot?" she muttered, her chest heaving. Then she remembered the voice, the voice that had saved her life. It came from the left, that's all she knew. Flinging her head around, Gumi struggled to find the source.

"Hey!" it said again. That single word had come from a weakening tongue, the voice hoarse and unsteady. Gumi's ears detected the urgency, and her eyes seemed to move of their own accord, pinpointing the exact location of the source. About twenty feet away, a human head was poking out from beneath a pile of shredded concrete. A telephone pole, old and brittle, had fallen atop the concrete, trapping the person in a cage of dust and debris.

"I see ya!" Gumi shouted, running towards them. A burst of adrenaline made her exhausted limbs move impossibly fast, the small beacon of companionship shining before her. Closer and closer, and the humanoid shape became an actual human, a boy with a mess of blonde hair that was matted with dirt and blood. A pair of blue eyes, deeper than the limitless sky, stared blankly at her as she ran. Tendrils of scarlet were strung across the boy's forehead and slipping sideways down his face. Gumi fell to her knees next to him, breathing hard, and gently stroked his cheek. "Hey, you're gonna be ok."

"Thanks," he replied. "Nothing's broken, I'm just pinned."

"So you're just trapped in a little…uh." Gumi didn't know what to call it. She silently cursed her ignorance as she went to work on the concrete slabs.

"A cavity," the boy said.

"Don't know what that means, but ok," she said as she gripped one of the slabs with both hands. By the arrangement of the concrete, a white puzzle with precarious pieces, she could tell which ones would free the boy or make the whole thing collapse in on him. Sucking in a deep breath, she prepared to pull the piece out. "Hold still. Count to three and then don't move, ok?"

"Got it," he said with a nod of his head.

_One, two, three_. Gumi was proud that she knew how to count. She relished over each number, saying it slowly inside her head, smiling inwardly. Her phone had taught her how to count. All of those hours locked in the closet, crammed inside the doghouse, they had paid off. Her green eyes aglow in the partial darkness, fingers trembling as they traced the individual numbers. One, two, three, the only numbers that were really necessary in Gumi's world. A signal for action, a command, a warning that hesitation was required. Crouching in the bushes, waiting for a gang of slavers to pass, those numbers could mean the difference between life and death. Hiding in the shadows, preparing for an ambush, those numbers could define a victory.

"Three!" Gumi grunted, lifting the slab up. Knees cracking, wrists popping, biting her lip as the concrete crumbled in her fingertips. White dust floated into the air, covering her in a layer of suffocating chalk.

In a fraction of a second, the boy rolled out from under the debris. "I'm out!"

Gumi nodded, her teeth gritted as sweat dripped down her face. The pain in her arms and legs, the anger and sadness that had been budding insider her like a poisonous flower, a crimson camellia growing in a pool of blood, every feral feeling from her primeval past was spilling over, manifesting itself in a scream that ripped through her teeth. She yelled out, letting the concrete drop. It hit the ground with a sharp crack, and she fell to her knees, still screaming. White knuckles were pressed into her eye sockets as sunburnt hands covered her face. Not enough water in her body to cry, the sun had taken every last tear.

But she wasn't alone, there was another hand touching her skin. It was gently brushing her knuckles, the rough fingertips wiping the blood off her wrists. A pair of lips, cracked just like hers, was pressed against her ear. "It's ok," the boy whispered. "I'm all right, you're all right."

Gumi lowered her hands and shook her head. "I know, we're lucky, so lucky. But the rest of 'em…"

The boy grabbed her shoulders, digging his fingers into her arms. "They're dead. They might as well be piles of dust in the desert, that's what they're worth now." His blue eyes bored into her green ones. "Look, we're probably the last two people alive in this village. We can sit here, crying and waiting to die, or we can get up and survive. Keep walking, that's what we have to do. Come on." He stood up and pulled Gumi to her feet, the broken glass and bone crackling beneath their feet. Wiping the sweat off his brow, he smiled halfheartedly and gave her a playful punch in the arm. "You saved my life, kid. Thanks."

"I ain't a kid," Gumi said with a hollow laugh. "You don't look older than me anyways." She ran her hands down her face and heaved a sigh. With each breath, the scene became more vivid. The ground, with its slew of shattered debris and flecks of blood, was jagged in her vision. Smoke was drawn in black and white pencil, the sky a charcoal canvas that cried tears of ash. The dirt and shriveled scabs on her skin were irritating; the rivers of blood that slid down the boy's face were loud against his pale skin. The world looked empty and saturated in her eyes, like an overexposed photograph that bled with colors. Devilish sun overhead, laughing at the corpses below, secretive clouds that hid the planes and hoarded all of their water, and the sky, the hunting ground for the fighter jets that swam like hungry sharks, waiting to strike. Scarlet blood on white skin, white knuckles on sunburnt hands, sunburnt faces blank and cold, cold steel cooling in the sun, sun's rays reflecting off the boy's blue eyes, blue eyes brushed by strands of light blonde hair, hair in Gumi's face, her face emotionless, emotions suddenly useless, useless flies buzzing around the bodies, bodies, nobody, anybody, somebody, this boy. "What's your name?" Gumi asked, her curiosity overtaking her.

"Len," he said. His eyes were partially squinted in the intense sunlight. "How about you?"

"Gumi," she replied. Typically, there would be a few seconds of silence after an introduction, followed by a firm handshake and an irrelevant comment about the weather, but the weather was always the same in the dustland, and there was no time for formalities. Shoving her hands into her pockets, Gumi turned quickly on her heel, looking around at the devastated village. "So you said that we should keep walking. Now what?"

"We hide. The soldiers will descend upon the village soon."

"Dee-sent? What kind of a word is that? I don't know what you're sayin' half the time, but whadya mean, 'the soldiers will dee-sent on the village?' Why would soldiers even be a part of this?"

Len's shoulders shook with cynical laughter. "They're always a part of it! I fled Phoenix two days ago. That city is completely destroyed. Just as I was leaving, the soldiers were pulling up."

Gumi's eyes widened. "Phoenix is gone?" she shouted, a shiver running down her spine.

Len nodded slowly, running his hand across his forehead. "It's leveled. No buildings, no people, no scrap of food. Everything is gone."

"But how? We never heard about that!"

"Of course not. This little village, it would be the last to know. Phoenix was one of the most advanced cities in the region, and now it's a pile of rubble. From what I've heard, other cities have been hit, too. And now even this place, out in the backwater, had been destroyed." Shielding his eyes, Len surveyed the charred landscape, an alien wasteland of decayed corpses and twisted bicycle tires. "They will come, I know it. We have to get out of here."

"All right. But we need to search the town first, looks for supplies." Her thoughts shifted towards the obliterated baseball bat. "Maybe some things survived."

"Maybe," Len said quietly. He turned around and started walking, his body soon disappearing in the atomic mist. Gumi watched him go, her legs wary. He seemed nice enough, which was odd. Most people didn't bother pretending to be nice; their knives were always visible beneath their clothes. But Len had risked his life, calling her over to him, exposing himself in a moment of weakness. She could have slit his throat or smashed his skull in, but he had asked for her help anyways. And then he had thanked her, wiping away the blood on her hands and smiling with his cracked lips.

"I'll lead the way," she shouted, running after him. There was nothing left for her in that village; there had never been anything there in the first place. The chains were cut, the dog was free.


	2. Killing the Canine

The shack that Gumi had once called home was a heap of tin and mud bricks. A dead dog was lying in front of the nonexistent front door, its body already crawling with maggots. The only living things, the cockroaches had begun their infestation. They swarmed around the rotting flesh and scurried beneath the rocks. A few were scuttling up Len's arm, but he didn't seem to mind. Picking through the metal sheets, he let them investigate his wrist, his elbow, his shoulder. Then, with a casual twist of his body, they fell off and he watched as they crawled quickly away.

"That's nice," Gumi said, digging through a pile of sand.

Len tossed a shard of glass behind him. "What's nice?"

"Letting them live. Most people just crush 'em."

"Well, I figure that they've got the right to live, too, you know? Killing them won't do me any good. I can't eat them," he replied with a shrug.

"Some people eat 'em," Gumi said thoughtfully. She cupped her hands and watched as the sand slipped silently through her fingertips.

Len laughed. "And then they die. If things ever get so desperate that we actually consider eating a roach, then I think we should just kill ourselves."

Gumi was quiet for a fraction of a second, her eyes moving across the sand. "How about we just shoot each other?"

"Whatever works for you."

"So what've we got?" Gumi said, eager to change the subject. She stood up, not bothering to dust herself off, and walked carefully across the debris. A small pile of redeemable goods had been accumulated, consisting of a rusty nail, a single can of dehydrated meat, and a strip of cloth.

"We could use the fabric to make a fire, I guess," Len said. "Food is food, and the nail we could sell as scrap metal."

"Or make it into a weapon," Gumi offered, rolling it around in her palm. She was crouched next to the pile, balancing on the balls of her feet. The nail glinted in the milky sunlight.

"Whatever you want." He looked down at his shadow, long and black, stretched out by the sun. "What time is it?"

Gumi pulled out her cellphone and wiped the dirt off the screen. "Uh, seven, zero, three."

"Three minutes past seven…" he mumbled. "We can't stay out in the open for too long."

"How long do we have until soldiers arrive?" Gumi said, alarmed.

Len shrugged. "I'm not sure; but we're pushing our luck." He surveyed the desolate landscape; his eyes squinted in the dying sunlight. "There's nothing left here, we should just grab what we can find and—"

"Look out!" Gumi shrieked. "Holy crap it's huge!"

"Huh?"

A massive dog suddenly appeared from beneath the rubble, eyes bloodshot, swathes of foam dripping from its gaping maw. Trapped by the initial bombing, its fur was matted with blood and its body was broken. But some final act of desperation, or insanity, had led it to the surface, and it turned towards Len. The madness of radiation poisoning already in its veins, it leapt at him, teeth gnashing.

"Get off me!" he shouted. The dog knocked him to the ground, scratching his arms with ragged claws.

Gumi watched as Len disappeared beneath the dog, becoming a rolling mass of human skin, fur, hands, and pointed teeth. She looked around, not knowing what to do. Emptiness, a lack of knowledge, swept over her. She felt it in her bones.

_I need my bat! Why isn't it here, why didn't I save it? I need it to save him!_

Grabbing at her hair, she screamed like an animal, howling like the mad dog rolling on the ground, and ran forward. She tackled it from behind, hearing its fragile ribs crack and savoring the sound. "You can't kill Len!" she cried, wrapping her arms around its neck. "I need him!"

It was a flurry of teeth and fur, red mouth hovering over her, flaming eyes peering down. Then, "Hold it, Gumi, I've got him!" And Len was there with a broken piece of glass. He shoved it deep into the dog's side, blood splattered, and it was dead.

Gumi stood up, feeling a gust of wind against her back. She was covered in blood, her chest was heaving. The dead dog lay at her feet, its eyes half-open. "That's it," she said blankly. "It's dead, you killed it."

Len threw the glass shard to the ground. "It was our only choice."

"I know." She kneeled down besides the dog, her eyes as wide and empty as her mind. Len's heavy breathing was nothing but a distant sound; the fear of the approaching soldiers was a vague memory. Tentatively, she laid her hand on the dog's side, feeling the puncture wound against her palm. "You were such a pretty dog," she whispered. "Sorry your death was so ugly." Tears slid down her face and a lump formed in her throat. "I-I'm sorry that I broke you." She remembered the sound of its cracking ribs, of her adopted mother screaming, of the cruel children moaning the streets, of the bombs and the fire and the sound of her own voice as she laughed at death and laughed because everyone was dying and…

Len's voice cut through the madness. "Gumi, we have to go."

She looked up, her eyes dry. "Yeah, you're right." She stood up, vowing to never look at the dead dog again. "Wait, are you bleeding?"

He shrugged. "I guess so. It bit my shoulder, but I'm fine."

Gumi leaned closer towards Len, realizing just how pale he was, how his body shivered in the hot sunlight. "It could be bad. How do you feel?"

"Doesn't matter," he mumbled. "Come on, we should probably find shelter, just a place to rest for a little while. We can't leave the town now, it's too late."

"Sure," Gumi said softly. She slid down the hill of rocks and debris, coming to rest on the broken sidewalk. "The hospital would be a good place to hide. It's still standing, kinda, and it's too big to be searched in the dark."

"The soldiers will have lights," Len said with a sarcastic smile. "But it's a good idea nonetheless, so let's go."

The sun was beginning to set when they got to the hospital. Gumi ran ahead, kicking aside the broken slabs of concrete aside and searching for a suitable hiding spot. If Len was right, then the soldiers could arrive at any moment. Her eyes narrowed when she thought of him, pushing himself to keep up with her, beads of sweat dripping down his face. Gumi wanted to knock him upside the head with a baseball bat, tell him that he was stupid, that he shouldn't try to act so tough. But she was silent, boiling in her anger, and at the same time, wondering at his strength. A trail of bright red blood was behind them, how he had not already passed out was beyond her. She shook her head, scoffing at his stupidity, and pulled a loose slab away, revealing a small 'cavity' as Len had said before.

"Great job," Len said from behind her. She turned around and saw him there, leaning against a partially destroyed wall, his blonde hair drenched in cold sweat. But his eyes were clear, his mind alert.

"You can't just hold it in," Gumi said simply. "Scream or something. It'll make you feel better." She looked up at him, her eyes stern. "I ain't gonna think less of you if you moan like a kid."

Len laughed subtly. "Looking weak gets you into trouble, and you've already seen me trapped beneath a telephone pole. Tonight, you'll probably slit my throat in my sleep."

"You won't be sleepin' tonight, not with that bite." Gumi replied. "Can you let me see the wound, at least?"

"No."

"What are ya hiding?"

"One of his teeth kind of got stuck in my shoulder," Len explained. "He obviously had extreme radiation poisoning and was badly injured. I guess his teeth were loose, and one of them fell out…"

_There's no way, _Gumi thought. Then she remembered tackling it, hearing it squeal. Maybe its jaws had already been locked around Len's shoulder, and the force of her body had ripped its teeth from its decaying gums. Her eyes suddenly softened, her hair falling in front of her face. "Just don't think you have to look tough for me." Tears blurred her vision. "It's just so stupid; you don't need to be anything. Look around you, nobody cares, they're all dead. And you'll soon be dead too, 'cause your pride will kill you." She hastily wiped her tears away, her eyes puffy and her nose running, but she didn't care. "So you just need to—"

"Yeah, yeah, you're right," Len interrupted, choking on his words. He sunk to the ground and leaned against the broken concrete. "Look, you just sleep a little, and I'll keep watch for a while. Besides I've got to pull this tooth out." Gumi receded into the dark hiding place, not wanting to wound Len's outlandish pride. An hour passed, and he was still outside. The compassionate part of her soul, which was unusually large for someone like her, was deeply concerned. How deep was the bite? Was he infected with some disease now? Was he going to bleed to death? She started; hitting her head on the low ceiling as something grabbed one of the concrete slabs. It was a hand, Len's hand that shook and trembled as he pulled himself into the hovel. He crawled across the dirt, breathing fast, his eyes still wide and aware.

"I'm spent," he said hoarsely, holding the bloody tooth in one hand. "Definitely spent." He rolled over onto his back, looking up at Gumi with his blue eyes. "So embarrassing…"

"Shut up with that already, will ya?" she growled, slapping the side of his head.

He hissed through his teeth. "Geez, Gumi, that was a little uncalled for," he mumbled, rubbing his temple.

She looked down at her hand, such an angry hand that had acted of its own accord. "I, uh, I'm sorry." Tentatively, she let her fingers touch his skin. "I think you have a fever," she said. "Here, you should take your jacket off."

He nodded heavily. "That dog had acute radiation poisoning, at least over 3000 rads in his system."

"How do you know this stuff?" Gumi asked, pulling down the metallic zipper.

"Books," he said. "I've found a lot of them in abandoned houses. I got this one on radiation, it's interesting enough. I just don't get it that's all, don't understand…"

"S'okay, just relax and stop talking," Gumi said, rubbing her hands down his arms, back and forth. "Calm down and breathe, you'll be ok."

"Of course I'll be ok," he said with a weak smile. "I got caught off-guard, but I'll hold on tight." He knitted his eyebrows, his eyes narrowing. "It still irritates me, though…I should have been paying attention."

"You can't always be like that, sometimes you get distracted, daydream…"

"That's no excuse," he snapped. All at once, he closed his eyes and took a deep breath. "But daydreaming is fun. I like thinking about the past, how people used to live. It's funny, how people adapt," he muttered, his eyelids drooping. "A long time ago, humans couldn't take very much radiation, but now, somehow, we can…" His eyes popped open again. "That reminds me. Get my rad reader out of my left pocket."

"What?"

"Rad reader. You never heard of one?" Gumi shook her head and Len sighed. "Whatever, just get it out of my pocket, ok?"

Gumi leaned forward, careful not to crush Len's head, and pulled a rectangular object out of his front pocket. Weighty, a dull silver color that glowed in the darkness. A black screen, unlike anything she had ever seen, was just beneath her fingertips, a green line running across its surface. Buttons, raised pieces of rubber and metal, enticed her curiosity, drawing her eyes like meteors spinning towards the earth. A loud beep rang out, echoing throughout the concrete cave. Gumi yelped and dropped the strange device, her thin body, all skin and bones, backing into a corner.

Seconds before it struck the hard ground, Len swiped it out of the air. "And you keep telling me to relax," he mumbled. "It won't hurt you. You use it to detect the amount of radiation in your body. Watch." He undid the cap, revealing a small tray, and pressed a button on the side of the reader, causing the line to waver. Thumb beneath his teeth, he brought his canine down on the soft pillow of skin and bit down hard. Trails of blood slid down his palm and into his mouth. Then he wiped his bloody finger across the tray, letting it soak up every drop it could manage. It was sloppily done, flecks of red on his teeth, dripping down his chin, the puncture wound in his thumb much larger than necessary, but he didn't care. Each finger was already calloused over from years of picking through trash and debris; all ten of his fingerprints had been erased by friction and accidental contact with chemicals.

A little blood was familiar to Len and every other child of the dustland. In fact, it was almost comforting, a splash of color in the usually grey and vacant landscape. His mind, already delusional from a steadily climbing fever, saw the rivers of red and reveled in their intensity. An image of skull-like rocks and brittle black trees flashed across his vision, his own face, unrecognizable beneath layers of sand and blood, and his vacant blue eyes that bulged from their sockets as he sat on a boulder, rolling a broken pelvis beneath his feet. Lowering his eyelids, hoping to escape that emblazoned memory, he found himself back in the makeshift cave, the air thick with ash and smoke.

A running green line and an emotionless beep that caught his attention. He looked at the rad reader, cleaning the smudged screen with his finger. "See? There's the number. One hundred rads, not too bad." He looked up at Gumi. "You ever get radiation poisoning before?"

"Once, about three years ago."

"Get caught in a bombing? Roll around in a puddle?"

She smiled wryly. "No, I actually did what we were talking about earlier. I ate a roach."

"I'd rather pour acid on my tongue."

"I was young and hungry, I had no choice." She tucked her legs awkwardly beneath her lithe body and rested her head atop her knees. "They don't taste so bad."

Len burst out into laughter. "You're crazy, kid."

A low growl shook Gumi's voice box. "I told you, I ain't a kid. I bet we're the same age."

"How old are you then?"

She held up both hands, her right index finger forming a one, and her left hand slowly raising five.

"Huh, we are the same age," Len said. "I turned fifteen in December."

"I don't keep track of time," Gumi stated blankly.

"You should." He paused for a moment, running his tongue over his scarred lips. "We should get some sleep. Tomorrow we need to get moving."

"Where? There's no place to go, everywhere looks the same. Just sand and more sand."

"There's a whole desert out there, waiting for us," Len explained, mid-yawn. "And there are books to save, people to find."

Gumi gasped. "That's right, you can read!" she exclaimed, ripping out her phone. "Tell me, what is this?"

"Let me see." He took the phone with both hands, his blue irises roving across the cracked screen. After a few moments, "This is the United States Declaration of Independence. 'It was a statement adopted by the Continental Congress on July 4, 1776.'"

"What does that mean?"

"It was basically a piece of paper that said that America was free from British rule. It declared America's freedom."

Gumi fell back onto her heels, habitually rocking back and forth on the balls of her feet. "But what's Amare-ka, what's British? Are they places?"

"I guess Britain was a country once, maybe it still is, but America is where we live. It used to be the name of the country that we're in right now."

"What, that doesn't—" Gumi stopped short, the sound of heavy footsteps ringing in her ears. She and Len looked at each other, their eyes wide.

Len swallowed, his body frozen. "They're here."


End file.
